


if the morning light don't steal our soul

by ilgaksu



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Armin is hella references, Character Study, Eren is angry, Introspection, Jean is homesick, Levi hates everything, come on guys, you all know the drill by now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 01:51:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3792121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilgaksu/pseuds/ilgaksu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first word of the Illiad is rage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arlert, A.

 

 

The first word of the Illiad is rage. Armin looks at his best friend and sees Achilles dragging a dead man by his feet around the walls of Troy, looks at Mikasa and sees Athena admiring a mere mortal, looks at himself and - 

 

He doesn't look at himself. Books are his mirrors and when they talk about St. Sebastian, shot through with arrows, martyred for refusing to give up on faith, he turns the page and turns it fast. Hannibal led his elephants through the mountains and through the snow to reach his goal. Genghis Khan's army wrote poetry. Machiavelli said it was better to rule by fear than love: Captain Levi walks past and Armin feels his bones snap to attention and smiles and won't say why. Snow White took the apple and bit deep. Lucifer was beautiful before he fell, before he saw a fucking pointless war and asked why, and when he fell, he fell hard.  

 

"I don't want it," Jean says, holding the apple core out in the canteen, and Armin snatches it out of his hands first. 

 

 

 

 


	2. Kirstein, J.

 

 

 

Of course Jean knew the way to run. It was his hometown. He'd be running through it his entire life, dodging into archways and laughing until the Military Police marched by and keeping his eyes on the ground. In his dreams, half-fevered in the barracks, he runs through the rubble, through his very foundations, and bones crunch underfoot. When he shocks awake, he sees the glint of Eren's eyes, cat-like in the dark. They stare at each other, Jean gasping for breath, and finally, Eren turns away. When the blood gets into his head, Jean washes it out with the smell of sunlight on stone. He goes home to Trost, licks the syrup from apple pie off his fingers, and works another notch into his belt so it fits right, snug against his skin. He sews until the world makes sense again, can be delineated in small darting stitches, because Jean Kirstein has always been his mother's son. Jean saw a child born one cold February and saw its funeral by the end of the month and, looking down at the tiny coffin, couldn't understand how beginning could stink of iron, how death could be so clean. 

 

And now they laugh at him for picking the dirt out beneath his nails,  _go back to Trost,_ but he can't, can he. They don't understand he's fixing himself up for his dying day, because if you've gotta face down the devil with a dry mouth, you better do it with clean hands. 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Ackerman, L. (Cpt).

 

 

 

 

Blood and silence and echoes. (Petra's star-eyes, Isabel's silver laugh, Farlan's smile like a slice in the night). Blood and silence and nothing. The places you go in your head to go elsewhere.

All's fair in love and war, after all. (How about we make a deal? Once you've wiped the dirt out of your eyes, of course.) All's fair.

And Levi fights dirty. Levi fights like the piece of shit underdog that he is, claws his way out from under your shoe, claws his way up to breathing. Bites down so hard he can't rinse the blood out and then spits it in your eye for good measure. Levi Ackerman is a no good son of a bitch and if he’s going to hell, you’re going to fucking burn with him. And don't they send them to him in fucking droves, fresh kindling for the apocalypse and when they die the sound crackles in his ears for days. _Out damned spot_ , the scrape of his nails against stone as he scrubs the insides of cupboards out, guts them and puts all the parts back in the right place but that's the thing with burning. You can smell it in your hair all night, over the boot polish as he cleans the leather 'till he could kiss it.

They keep dying in his arms, and they keep sending him more, and there's only so many times he can bleach the blood clots out of the white. There's only so long you can try and pull that trick, try and pull the wool over your eyes, before it disintegrates. You get where he's going with this one? Never mind. You've got an early start tomorrow. You'll catch up.

Get ready for the slaughter, kid. Death walks on two legs in these parts. 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  snk has ruined my life. [don't make me suffer alone. ](ilgaksu.tumblr.com)


End file.
